Smile
by Night Rain Illusion
Summary: Comashipping. It's funny how chance meetings that happen when you're young somehow impact your life. Even if it is only memories of playing with that violet boy that liked to cut the heads off flowers and run with scissors through the fields of Veilstone.


Another fluffy little Comashipping oneshot! I don't know where my idea came from, but I'm currently blaming it on some soft doujinshis I found lying around. I don't own Pokemon.

**Smile**

_Childhood flickers by far too quickly and you begin to forget the little promises you made in life._

"Why are we here, Mom?" six year old Ash Ketchum asked, tugging on the pants leg of his mother. They had just sat on a boat ride all the way out to some foreign country just to visit some relative Ash had never heard of. They were in a place called "Sinnoh", or something like that.

So even though he knew why they were there, he just didn't _understand _why.

"We're here to socialize and catch up with your uncle here in Veilstone, remember? You know who he is, he was at your fourth birthday party..." his mother says patiently as he stands next to her in the house, looking around. Sure, he knew who she was talking about, but he'd rather be back home playing his friends, like Gary or his sister Daisy.

His mother was a mindreader, he sometimes thought, because she says, "If you really want to go out and play, you can, but don't wander too far, OK?"

Ash grins. "Don't worry Mom! I won't get lost! I'll be right back!" he says as he takes off out of the house. He's running and running, not even sure where he's trying to go, but leave it to a six year old to have no definite plan of action. He did think though that maybe he could play with one of the neighborhood kids or something.

Ash soon came upon a field. It was filled with pretty red flowers that had oddly shaped petals, like small tentacles or something. Ash stopped to finger one of them. They felt like a sponge, strangely enough.

Ash looked up, suddenly noticing something several feet away. There appeared to be another small boy in the field.

A boy with violet hair.

_Even ones that may not seem to important when there's a high chance you'll never see that one person ever again._

Ash starts running over to this other kid, forgetting that he's now pretty far away from the house. He stops until he's close enough to get a better look, pausing to scratch at the flowers brushing against his bare legs. These flowers are kind of itchy, but that's what he gets for wearing a short sleeved shirt and shorts, he supposed.

The other boy is the same age as him, except that he has intense looking eyes. His purple hair is long enough to be almost touching his shoulders and his bangs just barely reach his eyes. He's wearing black shorts and a blue short-sleeved shirt. In his hand, gleaming in the sun, is a pair of sharp scissors. The kind that Ash's mom doesn't want him playing with.

The boy opens and closes the scissors for a second before closing them and swinging out at a group of flowers like as if he was wielding a sword. The flowers sever at the points and the heads fall off on to the ground. He does this again with another group behind him, cutting off the heads of more flowers.

Ash can't help but narrow his eyes a little. What kind of person cuts up pretty flowers like that?

Of course, he can't help but ask to quell his six-year old curiosity.

"What are you doing?" he asks aloud, coming closer. The violet boy jumps ever so slightly, quickly hiding the scissors behind his back.

"Nothing. What's it to you?" he asks, glaring slightly.

"I was just wondering..."

"I didn't ask you to wonder, did I?" he snaps back quite rudely.

Ash glares as well. He was just asking a question, after all.

"You don't have to be such a meanie." Ash pouts. "I was just asking..."

The boy looks Ash up and down, as if examining him. He slowly pulls the scissors out from behind his back, as if there's no point to hiding them now.

"I was cutting the flowers." he says after a second or two.

"Why?"

The boy shrugged. "Don't know."

Ash took a few steps closer, a flower's head crunching under his shoe. "I don't think you should do that."

The boy glares once again, putting a fist up close to Ash's face. "Yeah, well I don't care what you think! I'll do what I want, when I want."

Ash took a step back from the fist. "Maybe, but I still think that it's kind of mean to tear up the flowers."

"So?" the boy asks, crossing his arms and scrutinizing Ash.

"So don't do it. Only mean people would do that."

The boy leaned in close, his face close to Ash's. "So what if I am mean? Did you ever think of that, huh? That I'm just a mean kid that might try to hurt you or something?"

Ash was starting to think he needed to get away from this kid, but...something was keeping him there.

"I don't think you're a mean kid." Ash looks down at the severed flowers, as if trying to emphasis his statement to his unwilling brain.

The boy looks surprised, but is still frowning. Ash can't help but wonder if this kid can smile, as all he's done is frown at him. But then he turns away. "I don't believe you. You're just like the other kids. Everyone knows I'm just a jerk that needs to be avoided. I know you think the same way."

Ash watches the kid's back curiously. Every few seconds, it shakes slightly.

"I really don't think that way." Ash tries to say, but the kid turns to look at him, glaring again.

"You're a liar!"

"Am not!"

"Am too!"

"Am not!"

Now they're both arguing and glaring at each other.

"Yes you are! You lie like everyone else!" he says before taking off, running with the scissors.

"Hey wait, don't run with scissors!" Ash shouts after him, willing his feet to move and now he's chasing after him. The boy turns his head for a second.

"Shut up and leave me alone!" he shouts. But quite suddenly, the boy's feet fall out from underneath him. The scissors fly backward from his hand as the boy trips and lands on his face. Instinctively, Ash reaches a hand out to catch the scissors before they hit the ground, but instead the pointed end grazes against his pointer finger to the groove between his pointer finger and thumb as the scissors clatter on the ground.

He ignores them as he runs over to the boy, who has slowly sat up. He looks like he's trying not to cry as he holds on to his ankle. Ash got down on his knees next to him.

"Are you ok?"

"Hmph, like you care." the boy spats at him before wincing in pain. Ash frowned and put a hand on the ankle.

"No really, let me look."

The boy looks like he's going to yell at him again or push him away, but instead watches warily as he pulls the pants leg up so that he can see his ankle. There's a small bruise, but it looks like he'll walk.

"It's not too bad. I'm sure that you'll be able to walk back home. It's just sore from the fall." Ash says. The boy blinks, watching Ash like as if Ash grew another head.

"Why are you being nice to me?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ash asks, a little confused.

The boy shifts slightly, his purple hair in his face. He's on his knees now like Ash. Ash notices his hands shaking.

"Because the other kids don't like me and say that I'm weird or that I'm a jerk and other things and they're right anyway..." he says really quickly that Ash almost didn't catch it. The boy is crying now, a couple of tears hitting the back of his hands on his knees. Ash is startled. A minute ago, he had been scared of this kid, but now the kid was breaking down in front of him.

How does any six year old react to this?

Well, the best they can.

Ash puts a hand on one of the boy's hands. He looks up, eyes not as intense as before, but still hard, as if he was angry at himself for crying in front of a complete stranger.

"I don't hate you. How can I hate someone I just met? You are a little mean, but I don't think you're a jerk or anything like that. Maybe you just need to make a better effort, or the other kids need to try harder." Ash says, smiling a little. The boy uses his other hand to wipe his eyes for a second before looking down.

"Thanks, I guess."

"No problem."

There's an awkward silence before Ash holds a hand out. "I'm Ash."

He looks up and smiles for a second. It's small, but genuine. He takes Ash's hand. "I'm Paul."

So he really can smile.

But suddenly he's frowning as he indicates Ash's hand. "Hey, you're bleeding."

Ash looked down and noticed that the hand that got hit with the scissors really was indeed bleeding. Ash stares and he can almost feel tears come to his eyes as he can now feel the pain.

"I...It's nothing."

Paul frowns. "No it's not. It's bleeding badly."

"Y-yeah. Maybe I should go and-"

"Wait, don't leave yet. If your Mom sees you with a cut on your hand, she's not going to let you go out to play again." Paul pointed out.

"Oh yeah, you're right. But what do we do?"

Paul moved Ash's hand closer to inspect it. After a few seconds, he brings Ash's hand closer to his own mouth and puts his lips to the cut. Ash nearly jerks his hand away at the bizarre action.

"Wha-what are you doing?" Ash stuttered. Paul removed his lips.

"I'm stopping the bleeding. Whenever I cut my hands, sometimes I find that when you put your mouth on the cut on your hands, the pain goes away and it stops bleeding badly." Paul says, showing a cut on his own hand that looked like he had gotten it last week.

"Oh...OK then." Ash says. He remembers his mom doing that once for a cut on his finger a few months ago, so this was the same thing.

Right?

Paul puts his lips to Ash's cut hand again. It's weird, but not bad weird. In fact, he can feel the pain go away now. After a minute or two, Paul removes his lips and points to the cut.

"See? It's not bleeding anymore."

He was right. It was just a thin red line now, not as bad as it had been before. Ash smiled.

"Thanks Paul."

"It's nothing." Paul smiles again.

Ash finds it infectious for some reason.

_But you remember._

"We should probably try to find those scissors, otherwise my brother's going to be mad at me for taking them." Paul says a few minutes later, standing back up. Ash stands up as well, walking with him as they look for the fallen scissors.

"You have a brother?"

"Yeah, an older brother." Paul says, before spotting the forgotten scissors in the grass. He picks them up and shows them to Ash.

"Here they are. Hey, want to try cutting the flowers with them like the way I did?" Paul asks, holding the scissors out to him. Ash shrugs and takes the scissors from him. Even though it seems wrong to cut up the flowers, he did think it was kind of cool how Paul had slashed them as if he was a knight fighting a monster. As Ash is about to swing at a cluster of flowers, Paul's hand stops him.

"Wait, you have to close them first." he says as he closes the scissors for him. "And then you swing with the point facing away from you toward the flowers sideways. Got it?"

"Yeah!"

Paul steps back and Ash swings the scissors at the cluster. His aim is a little too high and he mostly catches their spongy petals as they gather at their feet. Paul laughs a little at his exploits.

"I didn't think you would be able to do it really well on your first attempt, but I'm sure that you'll get better."

They spend the next hour or so walking through the field of flowers, taking turn with the scissors as they pretend that they are trying to slain evil monsters and such. After some time, when there is now a patch of destroyed flowers, Ash flops down on the ground, carefully putting the scissors to the side.

"That was fun." he says as Paul sits down next to him. Ash cheerfully smiles at him. "You're a cool friend, you know that? Even cooler than Gary!"

Paul's smile slips slightly, looking surprised. "Do you...do you consider us as friends?"

"Of course!" Ash sits up straighter, looking determined. "I think that this day shall mark as the official first day of our friendship!"

"Really? So we're friends now?"

Ash cheekily smiles. "Yep!"

"Friends forever?" Paul asks. There is a slight air of challenge to it.

"Forever!"

Paul stares at him before suddenly holding up a pinkie of his finger. "Pinkie-swear?"

Ash giggles a little as he links his own pinkie with Paul's. "I promise that we'll always be friends..."

"Forever and ever." they both say at the same time. They both smile as they release their pinkies.

Suddenly, Ash can hear a voice calling for him. "Ash, it's time for us to leave!"

"That's my mom." Ash says, standing up. Paul stands up too, looking disappointed.

"You're leaving?"

"We have to go back home to Kanto now. We were here visiting a relative for a short time..."

Paul frowned, looking down at his sneakers. "So we're not going to ever see each other again?"

Ash frowns too. He now realizes that there's a good chance that he and Paul will never see each other again. But...

"No worries! I promise to come back every now and then to play!" Ash says, pointing to himself. "Count on it, OK?"

"Ok. I'll be waiting so that we can play again." Paul nods.

Ash starts to run off, waving behind him. Paul waves back, but looks sad as he does so. Ash slows down as Paul turns around and starts to walk away.

Paul's about to leave when he suddenly feels something collide into him. He turns and looks curiously to see that Ash was hugging him.

"But...just in case this really is goodbye...and we don't ever see each other again...just know that I'll never forget our friendship and that we're still friends forever!" Ash says, looking sad and his eyes seem to threaten to cry.

Paul smiles a little before turning and hugging Ash back. "Then don't think of it as goodbye. Think of it as seeing each other again someday! And I'll always remember that we're friends forever. We pinkie-sweared on it, remember?"

After a minute they both let go and begin to part their seperate ways, Ash to his mother and Paul back home to his brother.

Years will pass and they'll remember mentioning each other to their other friends and family, but soon, bitterly, they begin to forget the others names and what they looked like. Ash will forget the Sinnoh region in general and Paul will still feel the scorn of other children and slight anger toward somebody that never came back; eventually he'll grow up to be as bitter and apathetic as he had been before he had ever met Ash in that field off flowers, prone to taking out his anger on something else that doesn't deserve it, yet they remind him so much of himself in a weird aspect.

But somewhere deep down, they didn't forget their promised friendship. When Ash counts off the list of all his friends, it always ends with _"...Max, Dawn, and...and...who? I know that there's someone I'm forgetting, but who could it be?" _and Paul will one day walk through the very same field of flowers and think to himself, _"I played with someone here once before...but who?"_

And then, one day, when Ash meets Paul for "the first time", they both know just from looking at each other that they share something, but they don't know what it is. Even though it's destined now to be a rivalry, Ash likes to think that he's trying to "rekindle an old friendship" rather than "making a new friend" for some reason. So there's an odd familiarity between them when they introduce themselves.

"I'm Ash."

"I'm Paul."

And for a second, a memory of two children playing in a field of flowers and running with scissors flashes through both their minds before fading back into their deepest memory.

_You may not remember their name or what they looked like, but you'll remember linking your pinkies together and declaring "Friends Forever and Ever"_


End file.
